Dog breath

My husband Tom is a Buddhist. I’m a Christian. Both our traditions make no bones about what lies ahead. We all die. Both traditions in their raw essence counter our culture’s tendency to hide and deny death. 

Tom and I are entering into the last third of our lives. We don’t recognize ourselves when passing a mirror. Hair is gray and thinning. Skin sags in folds. There are brown blotches appearing on our hands and faces. All those vows we made not to let ourselves go the way of our grandparents and parents, they are broken and useless in the face of oncoming age. And what is there to do?

We’re living with a beloved puppy, Foxy, who has sped past us in dog years. She keeps us vigilant. As far as we can tell (she was a stray) she’s about 16 years old. Her teeth are rotten and her breath smells like dead fish when she stands in front of me panting expectantly. Foxy still loves to go for walks, but she’s got neurological problems. If she stands in one spot too long her right front leg quivers. When both her rear legs stay in the same spot the rest of her body moves forward, until she jerks herself together before she falls down. Some days its doesn’t work and she collapses. I found her in the flower bed the other evening doggedly trying to get up. Yet even she seeks to defy the encroaching years. This morning she was following around behind me as I watered the tomatoes and roses. Then she shot out of the yard as if chasing a cat. She ran over into our neighbors’ driveway and wheeled around to dash back. Before she made it to the front door, she circled again and dashed off in the other direction, making it two houses down into the driveway before circling back again. Then, panting, she ran to stand at the front door until we let her in.

Foxy embodies our ambivalence about aging into death. It’s there, in front of us, as the natural end-stage of this life. How we meet it is up to us. Buddhists don’t make promises about life beyond death like Christians do. That’s where the similarity ends. Buddhism emphasizes our daily lives and considers death a transition. Christianity, as a form of Judaism, was probably much closer to that in its formative stages. 

When we lose someone we love we have a hard time letting go. So Christians borrowed from other faiths and philosophies that promise life after death. I’m not sure what I believe about those things. When my father was dying he let me know he was having a hard time even though, as a minister, he’d helped many others embrace death with a certain faith. The further I walk this path of life, the more uncertain I become about what lies ahead. But I mean to continue with my eyes and heart open. The other day I had eyelid shortening surgery, so my eyes are a bit more open. The better to see what’s coming.

I was never promised a rose garden ... but moved to the city of roses

For 36 years I lived in a house with no yard. In Chicago I gardened in pots on top of my 10x18 garage roof. Over the years we built plant tiers to take advantage of the most sun. Plastic and fabric pots were the lightest weight. 

I grew mostly annuals and vegetables that would produce quickly in limited sun, an average of 6 hours of sun, in Chicago’s short growing season. That meant marigolds and geraniums and petunias in hanging pots. It also meant chard and parsley and basil and pole beans. 

I tried zucchini once. It grew like gangbusters for about a month, produced three squash, then got some kind of rot and keeled over and died. 

I tried potatoes in a bag, but I got not more out than I put in in seed potatoes. 

I also tried carrots in bags. They looked nothing like what you buy in the store. They grew two legs and looked like gnarled and twisted growths you’d find in the forest. 

Then I retired and moved to Portland. …

My husband and I opted for a newer home, on one level, with a yard for this new phase of our lives. Not just any yard. A mature yard. A yard that had been lovingly tended for years. We bought the house in February so we weren’t sure what would come up. In addition to the two Pacific redwood tress, an amazing array of flowering perennials pushed up through the clay earth. They bloomed in studied succession. Fuchsia and light pink peonies. Two varieties of red roses. Bright red rhododendron. Pink azalea. In the backyard, a succession of lilies of different heights and colors kept surprising us from May through mid July. And did I tell you about the purple clematis? Huge and prolific. It continues to give up a few blossoms, even through this past super hot August.

The climate here has taken some getting used to. It’s not quite as cold as Chicago and doesn’t have temps below freezing for weeks on end. But. It’s either raining or misting, sleeting or hailing, and sometimes snowing, from the time we got here until early July. The damp penetrates the skin and the darkness tends to close down possibility. Still, we noticed that every day there is a short window of sunshine somewhere. Because we’re not on a regular work schedule that one hour or so became our sign to get out and exercise. Or mow the lawn. Or grab a bite to eat at the nearby St. Johns Beer Porch food truck court.

During the rainy season, as the temperatures climb into the 50s and 60s during the day, we unpacked the veg trug — a 3’ x 6’ wooden planter on legs that we brought from Chicago in pieces. It was pretty deteriorated after six growing seasons, but we were able to reconstruct it with some new ribs replacing those that fell apart in our hands. We bought a burlap liner and filled it with raised bed soil. Then I went to City Farm, right down the street in St. Johns (which sadly is no more), and bought just a few plants. Six broccoli, six lettuce, one tiny tomato and one pepper plant, three basil plants, some garlic chives and a package of kale seeds. Having no experience, I planted them and let the cool, wet weather tend them. They looked soooo green and hardy.

Then all of a sudden in July the rain stopped and everything changed! It got warm. And dry. And my plants took off. That small tomato became the monster that ate up all the space in the veg trug. It shaded the pepper plant and the lettuce, which was good. We have copious lettuce for salads for about three weeks until the heat caused all the varieties to bolt. The pepper plant set one small pepper before it disappeared under the jungle of tomato branches. The broccoli is making a valiant effort to flower in the tangle. Basil we had to hide from the wind and weather. It was either too cold and rainy or too hot for the basil until we found just the right spot in the backyard, by the fence, between the arbor vitae. The kale has been prolific in its own little raised bed in the backyard. So finally, we it has taken over where the lettuce left off in our salad bowl. 

All this growth costs something. Water in Portland is very expensive when the rains stop. As a result we followed the example of our neighbors and let out grass turn brown. We just water the food crops and the flowering things. Especially the roses.

I never knew much about roses. But I'm grateful for what I’ve learned. I didn’t know they’d bloom more than once, but apparently they do. All you have to do is cut them back after the blooms begin to fade. They will muster their strength and send out new shoots that form buds and then we have a whole new display of bright red blooms. Roses are incredibly hardy. They survive the chilly and wet weather as well as the hot, dry spell (with a little help from us). 

I want to be like the roses. I want to grow, even more productive after serious pruning, and continue to bloom, adding a little beauty, in this new place we’ve planted ourselves. That's what I think about when I begin to question whether I did the right thing by giving away so much stuff, by letting go of my position as pastor in a church. 

What is a spiritual guide?

Someone who commits to accompany you in the exploration of our life in its entirety. Someone who creates space for you to catch your breath. Someone who invites you to pay attention to what calls to you from your depths as well as the height of your soul. Stop and contemplate the stumbling blocks as well as the stepping stones and guideposts. In relationship with a spiritual guide you will examine those things that give purpose and meaning to your life. All the senses will be awakened in the process and you'll find yourself taking a long, loving look at the story that is unfolding. 

Thanksgiving

A stack of catalogs is growing on my table. The cashier at the grocery store informs me that she will not be having Thanksgiving dinner. As soon as she gets off work she's lining up for Black Friday deals. The paper lands on my porch and the news is drowned out by ads proclaiming not-to-be-missed bargains. I can't think of anything I or any of my family members really needs. I have enough. 

In my morning pages I wonder: How could we spend our time if we were not shopping? Wanting more? What would we become aware of? How would we be?

We obtain the most precious gifts - not by searching for them, but by waiting for them. ~Simone Weil